


Becalmed

by ThreeMagpies



Category: Taboo (TV 2017)
Genre: Bargaining, Eventual Smut, Gen, Ghost Sex, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 10:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12479240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeMagpies/pseuds/ThreeMagpies
Summary: A Taboo fic post Season one. With his ship lying becalmed days out of Ponte Delgado, James Delaney needs to raise the winds. He strikes a bargain with the gods and Zilpha's ghost. She chooses the payment...





	Becalmed

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Hi, and thanks so much for having a look at this, my second fic set in the amazing Taboo universe. I love the idea of James and Lorna, but he and Zilpha had such an intense connection that this story seemed to make sense to me. 
> 
> I am a bit nervous though, there are some wonderful Taboo stories out there and I am loving reading them, I'm just dipping my toe in with respect and a little trepidation, cheers, Magpie.

James Keziah Delaney stood by the sail draped mast of the New Hope looking up at the shimmering carpet of stars shining above his head, praying to any gods that might be awake and listening for some wind.

He had the deck to himself after sending Atticus, French Bill and the others below to get what rest they could, taking the watch himself. He wanted to be alone when she came to him singing like all his other ghosts. 

Except she wasn’t like the others. 

She was Zilpha, and the songs she sang were of his guilt, of his searing, bone deep regret that the last things he’d said to her, even though they were true, had been the reason she’d sought escape and solace in death. He deserved to be haunted by his sister, welcomed it although until now he’d been able to keep her at a distance after that first, waterbound kiss. Now he had a use for her and needed her to come, needed her to speak with the gods for him.

He looked out over the calm, still waters for signs of her. But the night was silent, the air empty except for the gentle moaning creak of the boat and the discordant music of snores coming from the sleepers below decks.

They were still far from Ponte Delgado, becalmed with not a breath of wind for five long, dreary, inconvenient days, all his plans delayed. The provisions he’d bargained for with Strange were disappearing far too fast into bored and cantankerous mouths even with Lorna and Cholmondeley still eating little except gruel and lime water. He was going to have to ration the beer too and that decision was going to be far from popular. But at the rate it was being sucked down by his twice damned crew there would be none left in another day or two if he didn’t, and with no source of fresh water close they’d be reduced to drinking their own piss and fishing for the sharks that had started circling the boat. They’d wish he’d rationed them sooner then.

They needed wind. 

He closed his eyes, opened them again. Then blew the fine dust he’d scraped from between the timbers of the master’s cabin out of the palm of his hand into the air, chanting spells in an ancient, almost forgotten language that he’d bargained and paid for with his own blood, pain and the inked runes on his skin.

The dust hung for a moment, suspended, a silvery cloud that caught the light from sickle moon and stars in soft drifts of flickering sparks, then without his breath to keep it afloat fell, drifting slowly back to the deck like the softest rain.

He waited. Still, silent, patient. He had learned the need for patience when dealing with gods. They were fickle and answered in their own time, if they answered at all.

Nothing.

Perhaps the gods of the sea were deaf, or had turned away from him? Perhaps she wasn’t coming.

Hands clenching slowly into fists he closed his eyes then opened them again wide, his stare hard, determined. She had to come, and she would help him whatever it cost him.

The situation was becoming dire, for his plans as well as his crew.

There were fifteen souls on his ship as the tower ravens had said there would be, although he wished for more, and fewer ghosts. Ghosts had their uses, but strong, living men were what he required now. His eyes flickered. And one living woman, even though he waited on one that was dead.

His thoughts turned to Lorna.

He had been surprised and gratified at her courage and loyalty in choosing to follow him into the unknown and the sight of her wounded and suffering for that choice had touched his heart.

She was recovering quickly though and had got up from her bunk this last afternoon with Pearl’s help for a wash and a walk around the cabin. She had even smiled a little when he went to visit her, and had accepted his offer of paper and ink so that she could occupy herself with writing and sketching, her thanks genuine and heartfelt.

He grunted, a little surprised at how much her gratitude meant to him. His stepmother had a brave and intelligent mind and the thought of how hard it must be for her to be forced to languish in pain without occupation or diversion from it had prompted his gesture.

He wondered if she knew that he counted her as his now. 

Cholmondeley was another who had followed him without question or hesitation, almost to his death. The Chemist was still alive, barely, although whether that was a mercy or a curse was yet to be seen. If he survived the man would have scars to turn a woman’s stomach and might not count himself lucky even though his very survival verged on the miraculous. Although knowing the man, his continued survival was probably more to do with the cocktail of chemicals the chemist ingested regularly and the careful nursing of Godders and Robert, than with any kind of supernatural intervention.

James took a sip from the whiskey flask that hung at his belt, relishing the bite as the alcohol seared its way down his throat. The whiskey was getting low too, damn it all. He needed to ration himself. 

Standing back from the wheel, he ran his eyeglass around the horizon but the sky was clear and the ocean was a shining mirror full of stars. 

Then there was the boy. Robert was proving useful, intelligent and resourceful despite his lack of a good education. If Cholmondeley survived, perhaps he could serve as a tutor? With an education, even a bastard might make his fortune in the new world.

A movement off to starboard caught his eye, a faint mist hovering over the water, a shadow forming within it and a voice just as indistinct floating to his ears like the faint echo of music half heard in an empty room…

His breath caught in his throat, body tight with a mixture of anticipation, raging guilt and a gnawing, helpless sadness. But despite all that, despite his knowing that things between them had changed utterly, his cock thickened and stirred, eager for her touch. 

Then she was there, in front of him, her eyes huge and dark and deep as the sea, her floating hair caressing his cheek, tendrils winding round his neck, his hands… 

Like a shadow she twisted behind him, surrounding him, her delicate hands covering his eyes as she whispered a question and a bargain into his ear, her fingers running down his face and neck to his shoulders and back up again, reaching higher than she ever could when she was alive. Cool lips found the back of his neck, her small teeth biting, nibbling his skin, her tongue lapping, laving, leaving trails so cold they were almost hot. 

His flesh sang it’s own song that there was no other choice for him but to pay her price.

Her laugh rang out, silvery, mocking, the sound close but somehow distant too, an echo humming in his ear and he felt her slim fingers slip through the fabric of his coat and shirt as though it were made of air, finding solid skin, flesh, hard muscle underneath.

He shivered, gooseflesh prickling along his arms, the hairs at the back of his neck rising.

‘James…James.’ 

She sang his name in a whisper that he strained to hear but that ceased to matter as her fingers flowed down over his flesh and found his cock, his balls, his arse, her touch rousing him to a fever pitch of need. His back arched and he spread his legs to give her more access, his eyes closing, lips parting, breath leaving him in a gasp as impossibly she wound her body around him, her soft, cold mouth finding his tip and shaft and taking him inside, her throat as deep and tight as he remembered, her tongue swirling, swallowing, sucking, consuming him until after an eternity of writhing, exquisite sensation that had him falling to his knees against the mast he came hard in flooding, gasping starbursts of powder and spark into the air, throat aching, fists clenched, and heart pounding in his chest. 

He slid into warm darkness as she clung to him, his senses reeling and tears falling in hot streams down his cheeks.

She let him go at last, her lips sliding along his length, fingers stroking his skin as she rose in a swirl of shadows to stand before him, hair floating around her in dark, sinuous strands, eyes dark mysteries full of regret, shame and something like love that hauled him shuddering to his feet. 

Zilpha reached out to him, her fingertips caressing his cheek, one sharp nail piercing the skin under his scarred left eye, drawing blood. 

The gods always wanted blood.

Then she was gone.

As he stood there, still breathless, a gust of wind chilled the blood stained tears on his cheek and with the sudden snap and pop of billowing sailcloth and snapping lines overhead, the ship surged to windward like a horse leaping at the touch of a spur.

Satisfied, he took hold of the wheel in strong hands, the excited voices of his crew and their pounding feet on wooden steps rising above the splash of waves against the keel, the creak and groan of timbers flexing against the water and the scream of lines flying taut as sails billowed out.

He had a good use for the wind.

…………………..

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Thanks again for reading, I hope you liked it as much as I enjoyed writing it, cheers, Magpie.


End file.
